The present invention concerns a method for finding content on a music player or video player and in particular, such a method that employs a structured directory that is navigated using a small number of user controls.
Mobile digital music players have been improving rapidly in the last few years. Memory cost reduction and falling prices of other electronic components have further helped accelerate the adoption of these devices. Current digital music players are extremely small and some have storage devices (e.g. a 10-20 gigabyte (GBYTE) hard-disk (HD)) that can hold thousands of titles, also referred to herein as content objects. Similarly, currently available compact disc MPEG I, audio level 3 (CD-MP3) players can play as much as 20 hours of music with a single CD; 700 megabytes (MBYTES) of CD space translates to more than 200 titles (assuming about 3 MBYTES per title). With the increased compression efficiency, the number of titles that a single CD may carry would more than double (e.g., using Windows Media Audio™ (WMA) or MP3pro).
Because digital music players can store a large number of titles, it is highly desirable that they be provided with a method for easy navigation across title names, artist names, genre names and other type of search cross sections. Current systems have attempted to address this problem. For example, in their MOJO™ music player, TDK introduced a way to simplify the title search traditionally done with ID3 tags. This system allows a user to associate each file with a title, artist name and genre and then to search for the file in any of these categories. The iPOD™ also introduced improved methods for navigation. The iPOD system also allows users to navigate using different categories. In addition. this system employs a thumb-wheel which allows a user to rapidly navigate the lists in the categories. Digital music players, however, because they desirably have a small footprint, typically have a small display screen and have only a small area left for buttons or switches. These design constraints make it difficult to design and implement an ergonomic navigation system.